5 Directions We’d Like To See Frank Ocean Go In On His Next Album

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Frank Ocean‘s Channel ORANGE is by all accounts an R&B album, but not all of its 17 songs necessarily fall into a traditional format indicative of the genre. The GRAMMY-nominated release featured “Pyramids,” a nine-minute epic that took from club music, psychedelic rock and slow-burning R&B, not to mention a guitar solo from John Mayer. Along with other influences, including the occasional bit of electro-funk, soul, hip hop and more, Channel ORANGE was a difficult album to pinpoint from a musical standpoint.

In February, Ocean revealed he was already at work on a new album, which he called “another cohesive thing” along the lines of its predecessor. On the red carpet of the Time 100 Gala this week, he revealed that his inspiration for the new project extends to some new influences, which admittedly is not all that surprising, since with Ocean, you never really know what to expect.

“When I was making the first [album] there were a group of artists that I listened to, just for inspiration and to absorb the energies,” Ocean told MTV. “It was a lot of Stevie Wonder, and this time it’s a lot of Beach Boys and Beatles and whatnot, so we’ll see how it trickles into the music and the final product. I can’t say much other than that.”

Whether or not you’ve been waiting for a ’60s rock-influenced album from Ocean, the exciting thing about his music is that it has many aspects. So while this might be one direction he’s taking, the finished product could conceivably include a bevy of influences, some expected and some out of left field.

It may be too late to include these on his upcoming album, but here are a few musical influences we’d like to see on Ocean’s next — or any future — album.